Coke's secret recipe been uncovered?

The only secret more closely guarded than Kate Middleton’s wedding dress designer is the recipe for Coca-Cola, specifically, the ingredients in the mythic flavoring mixture known as Merchandise 7X. On Friday, This American Life reported that they came across a 1979 newspaper article that showed what seemed to be the original recipe for Coke. Buried on page 2B of the Feb. 18, 1979, edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a columnist reported finding the recipe, written by hand in a pharmacist’s notebook – not so strange considering Coke was invented by pharmacist John Pemberton and originally sold in pharmacies. The notebook had allegedly been passed down by various pharmacists and was in the hands of Everett Beal at the time the column was written. Investigative reporter Mark Pendergrast, who wrote “For God, Country & Coca-Cola” in 1993, told the radio program that “only two people at any given time know how to mix the 7X flavoring ingredient … it’s this carefully passed on secret ritual.”

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Coke’s secret recipe been revealed

An edgy public radio show has revealed what it purports to be the secret recipe for Coca Cola -- a formula which has become the stuff of legend after decades of careful marketing by one of the world's most recognizable brands.

The recipe is supposedly kept in a locked vault, and Coke at one point had an advertising campaign about the two top executives who knew the secret and couldn't fly on the same plane or the formula could be lost forever.


"We think we may have found the original recipe for Coca Cola," said the host of "This American Life" Ira Glass in opening the hour-long program that aired over the weekend.

"One of the most famously guarded trade secrets on the planet -- I have it right here and I am going to read it to you and read it to the world and make my case for why it is real, despite what Coca Cola may say."

The handwritten formula was discovered in a pharmacist's old book of recipes and published in the company's hometown paper -- the Atlanta Journal Constitution -- in 1979, Glass said.

"If that seems a strange and random place to find this kind of thing, well, Coke was invented by a pharmacist and was originally sold at pharmacy soda fountains," he said.

The book apparently originally belonged to an acquaintance of Coke's inventor, John Pemberton, and was then passed from one pharmacist to another before it was eventually discovered by the newspaper columnist.

The newspaper even published a picture of the recipe, which was clear enough to read each ingredient.

What convinced Glass is that the formula matched -- and filled out -- a partial recipe found in Coke's archives that also became public.
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More about → Coke’s secret recipe been revealed